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Yoshiaki Fujiwara-Kato 240mm review

I did a little sharpening and a little testing and decided to post a mini review, that I will add to a few times as time goes on.

#1. First impression OOTB, great looking knife, the profile is not like any other gyuto I can think of and I like it.
I really like the burned chestnut handle, my first one and I am really impressed, very nice feel to it and the looks is great. Definitely feels better more solid than Ho wood handle. Nice rounded spine, the choil not so much but I am fine with that it does not bother me. The kanji is killer IMO, deep and large symbols, I like that a lot.

#2. Sharpness OOTB was decent but not great, the edge was the maker's edge not sharpened by Maksim.

#3. The knife according to the specs is ~270g so pretty heavy if you go by the number, however in hand it feels solid but not heavy, kind of weird but that how I feel it.

Performance:
I compared cutting to 240mm Shigefusa that was finished pretty high on naturals against the Kato edge OOTB.
I tested only on apple, the Kato cut noticeably better than the Shig , the Shige had harder time cutting trough and needed more effort to finish the cut.
The knife is pretty thick by the common definitions here, but the grind somehow is really really good and makes the cutting rather easy without wedging.

Second test was after I sharpened the knife on the JNS 3k (aoto).
I cut a bunch of celery, and again the Kato cut noticeably better. Both knives cut the celery easy only the Kato felt a lot better while cutting. For once again the grind just makes cutting entirely different experience, but I also realized that the knife has very very good feedback. I guess it is the steel and the whole knife construction, but you can feel the board while cutting, sort of live feeling that the Shigefusa or Moritaka(my beater gyuto) do not provide. The feeling is as if the knife sinks in the board, only it does not and the feeling is not sticky. I think I have seen honyaki described as similar feeling.
The cladding did not show any signs of reaction after cutting and I did not feel any of the smell typical for carbon knives cutting acidic good.

I was worried a bit that the weight will be a bit much for me, I do not like heavy knives or too light for that matter, but as I mentioned above the knife feels solid and not heavy.

So far that is all I got, I'll add a few more times as I get to cut some more, but from initial impressions I have to say it is a really good knife really worth looking into IMO.

Today I did some more cutting with the Kato.
I did compare to Shigefusa on yellow squash, cabbage, carrots, onions.
The Kato came on top for performance, the noticeable difference being it cuts much more effortlessly the carrots and squash, so it performs better on items that are more prone to wedging. I really like that knife.

Some notes on sharpening the knife.
When I received the knife I used it for a few test with the edge OOTB, then sharpened it a bit on the 3k JNS Aoto.
Today decided to sharpen the knife a bit more to see how ti will turn out not that it needed any sharpening from the previous time.
So I used the 3k JNS and the 6k JNS, I am very impressed by the steel. Easy to sharpen, no wire edge and very hard, harder than Shigefusa for sure.
The bevels are very narrow which is another sign of a very thin behind the edge geometry. After the 6k stone I did not see any wire edge again.
Next time I will put it on natural stones to see how it behaves, but I must say I am very impressed by this knife on all levels.

Anyways I think its kinda funny more and more folks here think real japanese knife is paper thin. But if you look at the fujiwara - i mean not yoshiaki[also] but teruyasu, or shigefusa, Heiji, they are all thickish. Ad those are the real small producers.

Anyways I think its kinda funny more and more folks here think real japanese knife is paper thin. But if you look at the fujiwara - i mean not yoshiaki[also] but teruyasu, or shigefusa, Heiji, they are all thickish. Ad those are the real small producers.

I agree, if I were to order another Shigefusa now I'd go for thicker than their stock not thinner.